Chris Columbus wrote both Gremlins and Goonies before he segued into directing, and he is involved in reboots of both those films. Both, particularly Gremlins, have been the object of a great deal of talk for several years, with (thankfully) no concrete results to show for the development efforts.

With the new Columbus film, Pixels, hitting theaters this coming week, the director is out on the press circuit saying that both ’80s reboots are fill in full swing, at least on the development side. The good news is that the process is a very slow one, so we probably don’t have to worry about either film arriving for a while yet. Read More »

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Tomorrow night kicks off Gallery 1988’s Both Sides: An Art Show Celebrating Heroes & Villains featuring artwork by Dan Mumford and Jeff Boyes, two pop culture artists we’ve featured on the site previously. The show will also feature some “cameo” artwork from Ashton Gallagher, Chet Phillips, Clark Orr, Dave Quibble, Jeffrey Everett/Rockets are Red, Ryan Binkerhoff and Sam Gilbey. Hit the jump to get a preview of some of the artwork from the show.Read More »

While in Las Vegas for CinemaCon 2015 last week, I got the opportunity to sit down with Chris Columbus, a screenwriter and director who had a dramatic effect on the cinema of my childhood, and yours. Lets do a list: Gremlins, Goonies, Young Sherlock Holmes, Adventures in Babysitting, Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire, Stepmom, and the first installments of the Harry Potter franchise. His latest film Pixels seems to be a return to the roots of his earlier days, and I’m personally excited to see it.

In my interview with Chris Columbus(who turns out to be a daily /Film reader) I ask him if he will ever return to writing original screenplays again like he did with Gremlins and Goonies. He explains how he got involved with Pixels, initially having not seen the viral short film which inspired the movie. He talks a bit about how the licensed video game characters became involved with the project and also talks about Pac Man creator Toru Iwatani‘s appearance in the film, not as himself (as seen in the trailer) but in a cameo role.

We learn whether or not there was any pressure to differentiate the movie from Ghostbusters, and Columbus talks about a return to the Amblin era of films, whether he’d ever direct one of John Hughes‘ unproduced screenplays, and he even gives us an update on the Gremlins reboot. Hit the jump to read my full Chris Columbus interview from CinemaCon 2015 in Las Vegas.

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to talk to writer/director Chris Columbus about his upcoming film Pixels. That full interview will be posted next week, but for now I wanted to feature a short excerpt from the interview. Columbus talked about why they are rebooting Gremlins, and what got him interested in returning to the franchise. He also discussed whether or not we might see some of the characters and actors from the original film return.

This news answers a question that has been raised many times over the years: will there be some sort of remake or reboot of Gremlins? We’d heard just months ago that a reboot was probably dead, but things change. Now the answer to that question is “yes,” and Warner Bros. has just hired a new Gremlins remake writer. Carl Ellsworth (Goosebumps) will script the new take on the story of rapidly-multiplying little green monsters. Read More »

Gremlins is a property that has been on the “maybe/maybe-not” list for a reboot or remake over the last few years. As a great example of animatronic effects, the idea of seeing all-CG (or mostly-CG) gremlins isn’t very appealing, and the relatively safe tone of big-budget filmmaking now isn’t the sort that lends itself to a great new Gremlins movie.

Still, screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith has been attached to a project that was supposedly fast-tracked at Warner Bros. last year. We haven’t heard more about it, so what happened? Grahame-Smith says it basically “ran out of steam.” Is it too early to say “Gremlins Reboot Dead!”? Possibly, but this is good news for now. Read More »

This Christmas, the collective entity of /Film pooled their efforts together to present this gift. Earlier this week, I polled all our writers and editors for their top ten holiday films of all time. I then gave each film on each list a 1 to 10 ranking. 10 points for first place, 1 point for 10th place, and added up the results. What were the results? Pretty predictable, if you ask me, but fun nevertheless.

Still, there were plenty of great movies on the list and weird subplots to explore. For example, only two of us put the same film number one, and it just so happens to be our overall top pick. However, another writer hasn’t even seen that movie. (Until late last night, as it turns out.) Which film is it? And what did it beat out? You’ll have to click below to read /Film’s 20 Favorite Holiday movies of all time. Read More »

Whether you’re giving or receiving, there are few things better than a gift. It feels great to get one, it feels wonderful to give one, it’s just a nice thing. Gifts in movies are kind of the same. They represent a bond between characters that can be layered with meaning. The person getting the gift can be either appreciative or disappointed, the person giving it either sincere or malicious. There’s just so many ways you can go with it.

Being as it’s the holiday season, we decided to pick out our favorite gifts in movie history. Not necessarily the best ever, just our favorites. That means not all of these are “good” gifts. Some, in fact, are awful. But it’s the act of giving them, whether in the context of an overall film or series, that makes them awesome and memorable. So, below, we count down our 25 favorite gifts in movie history. Read More »

The ugly sweater is an art form, a fashion niché now reserved for Eighties sitcoms and kitschy holiday parties. Usually, you find them at Goodwill or other similar stores and the busier or uglier it is, the better. But on rare occasions, you can find them where they’re actually cool. Or at least ironic and Mondo just made two such sweaters. They’ve created ugly knit sweaters for two movies set in the snow: The Coen Brothers’ Fargo and Joe Dante’s Gremlins. Check out the Gremlins and Fargo sweaters below. Read More »